Discovering Myself
by Everything's BIGGER in Texas
Summary: "Urg, I don't suppose you'd know the feeling but sometimes you have expectations put on you and you feel obliged to fulfill them. Good or bad."  He hummed thoughtfully. "Yeah, I know something kind of like that." AH/OOC/Lemons JasperxRosalie
1. Chapter 1 Mr Whitlock

1. Mr. Whitlock

How do you help yourself when you don't realize what you're doing wrong?

I never knew that half of what I did was bad, frowned upon or anything of the variety. No one told all just whispered as I walked past in my thigh high boots and mini skirt saying what a whore I am and how I should be avoided.

Probably true, except the whore part, you can't be a virginal whore.

I suppose with no other frame of reference I always assumed what the girls on TV were doing and wearing was acceptable. Apparently it's not.

Most girls have a mother or a protective father, someone to yell. "_Young lady, you are not going out in that_." when you come down the stairs with a pair of Jimmy Choo's and a skin tight dress as the only things covering your genitals from the world.

My mother died having me and my father went back to work three days after I was born. As soon as he could find a nanny willing to care for a newborn. I never called him _daddy_, it was always Bryce. He said that if I wanted to be spoken to correctly that I would act like an adult, otherwise he would just coo nonsensical words at me. I was three when I was told that.

Once a week I get given two thousand dollars to entertain myself and having never had anyone to tell me to be frugal with my money or to perhaps save in case of an accident, I usually bought whatever was the latest thing going around then discarded it a week later.

Spoilt? Hardly. I'm more neglected then spoilt. My nanny was a Vietnamese woman who only said three words in English. "_Rosa-wee_" and "_Where woo_?".

Expensive schools never interested me, sure, I was relatively smart, I had to be to live. How that woman never poisoned me as a baby I'll never know but I did live. But once I picked up the gist of what that dumbass teached was jabbering on about I really had nothing else to do.

I didn't socialize well so I didn't bother even trying, probably something to do with the fact that I was around adults my entire life. I never even saw another child till I went to school, I just assumed I was some oddity that was shorter than the rest of humanity. I was not aware that their were others like me, slowly growing.

My first and only friend stopped talking to me because I asked her what happened to her legs and why her arms were so small. I didn't understand the concept of needing to grow to become like the adults.

Her mother said I was a horrible girl and of course I believed her.

That mightn't have been such a bad thing if I hadn't taken her literally. She said I was horrible so I put all my five year old efforts into being really good at being horrible. If I was horrible I was going to do it properly, be good at what I did. I watched TV, my educator, when ever someone said that a person was horrible I made a note that I should do that. It was the best way to become what the woman had said.

The teacher never understood why I started biting everyone who pissed me off. Someone tried to take my cookie at lunch so I whacked her in the face with my lunch tray, it was the only rational thing to do.

In sixth grade this boy, Trey I think his name was, said I hot. I naturally went home and Googled _hot_. Up popped pictures of scantily clothed women and buff, well muscled men. They were hot. Ok, if I was horrible and hot then I would be both. I wore shorter skirts, tighter shirts, higher heels and more make-up. I was going to do hot well.

After the lunch tray incident I was banned from all private schools in the state so I went to a nice public school where there were metal detectors inside the doors, huge fences topped with barbed wire and a nail file was a weapon.

My first day back at school after my boning up on _hot_ was quite eventful. I walked into the classroom, all of eleven years old. Two inch heels, tartan mini skirt that was very popular on the websites, a white shirt tied around my stomach and two socks down the front of my bra seeing as I didn't properly fill an A-cup at that stage. The teacher didn't know what to say. I sat down at my desk and waited for him to start teaching the class but it seemed all he could do was stare at my pre-teen thighs.

I think he might be a paedophile.

When he took me down to the office and they called my father, he said he was busy in a meeting and asked one of the office women to find me something regulatory to wear. Out of the lost and found I was placed in a too-big pair of boys pants and a black shirt that had a picture of an apple on the front.

This was definitely not hot.

By the time I reached high school I was a horrible, hot, slut with an attitude problem that needed readjusting and just recently I'd been labeled a whore. I didn't know how to better myself at that without cancelling out the other ones.

You can't be a slut if you ask people to pay for it. _Maybe I could be a cheap whore_.

For Halloween, most girls dressed up, I just walked to the door in Victoria's Secret lingere and a robe, opened it and asked for the candy. I either got called a whore, which I was working on, or I got the entire bowl tipped into my bag. It was a good year.

"Hey, Slutalie." A guy called behind me. I turned on my toes and faced him.

"What can I do for you?" I asked, one hand on my hip.

"You can open your mouth and bounce it up and down a few times on the one-eyed snake." he answered, his friends laughing behind him.

"That's what you want from me?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

"What else?" he asked, shrugging.

I walked forward, sexy smile on my face as I closed the distance. He looked back over his shoulder and smiled to his friends as I drew closer. I stopped a few inches away from the boy who's name I couldn't remember.

"What's in it for me?" I murmured.

"A protein shake and some deep throating practice." he laughed. I smiled as if that appealed to me and reached my hand slowly forward. I'd had this happen before, they're all talk. I grasped his flacid penis through his jeans and gave it a small squeeze, a pleasurable one that wiped the smile off his face.

"Oooh, sorry, I don't blow mini gerkins." I smiled apologetically and turned back around. Leaving him to deal with his friends who were now all under the impression that he had a two inch penis. It wasn't really that small but now he'd always question the size of his dick because that girl in high school said it was small. Oh well, there's the _horrible_ coming through.

I walked into my last class before lunch and took my seat, swinging my legs up onto the vacant chair beside me as the classroom filled with my fellow students.

"Alright, alright, I know we're all very excited to be learning but could I have some quiet please?" Mr. Malloy asked. He was a relatively relaxed guy, early fourties, slightly grey at the temples on his otherwise blonde hair. "Miss Hale, feet off the seat." he said without looking up to check. I always did it and he always told me off. I don't think his day would be complete without saying those words. So I let him, just a little free service I throw in.

Mr. Malloy started babbling away about some shit, I looked at the book, saw a blown up picture of some bug and tuned out. I have no interest in getting into anything to do with insects so he can stick this lesson up his rear.

A knock at the door had my attention, anything that didn't have six legs had my attention. Before Mr. Malloy could respond the door banged open and in walked sex on a stick in a leather jacket and light blue jeans.

I almost passed out.

"Excuse me!" The somewhat startled teached said.

"Where are you going? I just got here." The mystery man said, his sunglasses were extremely dark, hiding his eyes but the blonde hair with what looked to be natural brown highlights hinted that his eyes were probably blue.

"Nowhere... um, who are you?" Mr. Malloy asked, putting down his whiteboard marker. Every head in the room was turned to our visitor, I assume anyway, I couldn't look away long enough to check.

"Your new student." he answered sarcastically, handing the piece of paper he was holding to the dumbstuck teacher before turning to look at the class. "Hey boys and girls." he waved. Confidence fucking personified. One more word and I'd come in my seat.

"Well Mr. Whitlock, welcome, please take an empty seat and take off the sunglasses." Mr. Malloy started hastily writing on the slip as he spoke, returning it to _Mr._ _Whitlock_ before he walked off down the center aisle. He took the last empty desk right in the middle of the back row, dumping his books on the table before sitting down, looking totally comfortable instantly.

"I do believe the teacher is at the other side of the classroom but it's nice to see you guys too. I love you all already." He waved to the front of the classroom, everyone had turned to watch him walk to his desk.

"Ahem!" Mr. Malloy cleared his throat. All twenty-five heads snapped back to the front as if electrocuted. I'm sure they were just embarassed to have been caught staring. "Mr. Whitlock, the sunglasses."

"Oh, no can do. Severe light sensitivity, I have a note from my optimologist and your local doctor in case you don't trust people you've never met." He whipped out two pieces of paper and held them out in offering.

"Oh, well no problem. Don't let me catch the rest of you wearing sunglasses in class unless you too have a medical condition." He moved his eyes over the class in a warning look then turned back around and continued the lesson. I could hear everyone shuffling in their seats, trying to get a glance at our new classmate.

I resisted, he was just some insanely gorgeous guy who would no doubt start calling me a slut soon enough. I spent the entire class with a piece of paper on my tongue, trying to wet it enough to make it disintergrate in my mouth.

The bell rang and we all filed out of the room, _Mr. Whitlock_ staying behind for some reason, not even attempting to move.

I took my usual table in the back right-hand corner with my lunch, a rather interesting blend of cuss-cuss and chicken in a white gluggy sauce. _Yum_.

The table jarred all of a sudden and when I looked up I almost choked on my own spit. There it was! The leather clad definition of unstimulated orgasm.

"Hey, so what's your deal?" he asked, no preliminaries, not "_My first name is...._"

"What?" I frowned, putting down my fork.

"Are you some kind of freak or something? Everyone in that class stared at me like a science experiment and you just lost interest when I sat down and then you started... eating paper." He smirked and his light eyebrows pulled together over the black sunglasses.

"I wasn't... eating, um..." _What the fuck is going on?_ I steadied myself before I continued. "I wasn't eating it. Why would I stare?"

"Oh, I don't know, because I'm something new to look at and relatively breathtaking." He smiled slightly, his white teeth peeking between his full pink lips.

"Modest huh?" I laughed nervously.

"Not really," he shrugged. "Are you too good for me or something?"

"I'm sorry-"

"For what?" he cut in.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked, finally saying what I was wondering about for the whole forty-five seconds of this bombarding.

He laughed once and held out his right hand. "Everyone calls me Jay, if you get to be a good enough friend I'll tell you the full name. Or you could just break into the school records."

I shook his hand hesitantly, noting the soft skin despite the callus's on his palms. "Rosalie, that's my full name." I pulled my hand away, mentally debating whether to wash it ever again or just use it to pleasure myself for the rest of eternity.

"Well Miss Give-Everything-Away-At-Once, do you not find me interesting?" He took my bottle of lemonade and unscrewed the lid. "You don't have herpes do you?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Cool." He took a swig and put the lid back on, pushing it back beside my tray.

I could feel every pair of eyes in the place on me, the weird-ass girl with no social skills, sharing a drink with the new hottie.

"Don't look at them, it's rude when I'm talking to you." He snapped his fingers to regain my attention.

"Um," I looked back and swallowed hard. "I don't know you to find you interesting." _To find you stroke causingly attractive I just have to look in your direction._

"Would you like to?" he asked, his eyebrows raising over the dark lenses.

"Not really, I don't do human contact." I answered before I could think it through.

He paused, not expecting that, lost for words. "Okay, well I'll leave you as you were then. See ya, Rosalie." He got up and left as quickly as he arrived.

I had to remind myself to breathe. "What the fuck?" I questioned out loud.

I spent the rest of lunch pondering my every breath, every word that transfered between us, the way he'd just appeared and then disappeared in a moment.

The next two classes were a blur, I didn't see him for the rest of the day or in the parking lot after school. Had he gotten out here and left before me? Was someone else driving him, in a car I wouldn't not recognise so I could peg it as his?

"Rosa-wee! Where woo been?" Min Lin knocked on the window of the car, apparently I'd driven myself home without crashing or watching where I was driving. _Huh, she learnt another word, good for her_.

"School, where I always go from Monday through Friday." I rolled my eyes and turned off the engine.

"Rosa-wee..." And then she started jabbering away in Vietnamese.

"Ah huh." I nodded. I got out of the car and walked inside, up to my room where I promptly slammed the door in her face. Not that she shut the fuck up or anything.

"I like her." A voice said behind me. I spun around and sucked in a nice breath to scream with but a hand clamped over my mouth. "Jesus girl, freak out much?"

I noticed the sunglasses first, then the hair.

"Wha da fut argh youph doing 'ere?" I asked, my voice mumbled by his soft, lotion scented hand. Not lotion, it wasn't floral or feminine, moisturizing soap?

"Your house keeper let me in, seemed quite pleased that someone other than your father and yourself was here. _Extremely_ pleased when I could speak Vietnamese. Can I take my hand off your mouth now, it's getting quite wet." he asked.

"Ah huh." I nodded slightly.

His hand went away from my face and he wiped it on his jeans. "She took the time to show me your bare behind when you were a baby. Taking special care to point out the fact you have the same shaped ass as your father."

"Well as disturbing as that is it still doesn't explain what you're doing here or how you knew where I live." I glared up at his shaded eyes, he smirked at me and shrugged.

"I don't have a problem rifling through school records. I figured you'd want to apologise so I'd give you that chance." He took a step back and folded his leather covered arms.

"Well you took the initiative for no reason, I don't want to apologise for telling the truth. I don't do well with people and I don't want to know more about you. If I did, I'd hire a private investigator." I walked over to my bed, knowing I had pepper spray in the top draw that I could pull out easily if he tried anything less than innocent.

"You've got a bit of an attitude, don't you?" He smiled as if that were funny.

I rolled my eyes and shrugged. "I guess."

"So you don't want to apologise?"

"No."

"You're rude."

I scoffed and shook my head. "This coming from the person who shows up unannounced and uninvited then enters a persons bedroom rather than staying in public areas of the house."

We stayed silent for a minute or so till he sighed and unfolded his arms. "I suppose that was rude, I apologise. Do you accept?"

I shrugged. "So long as there won't be a repeat offense." I nodded, accepting his apology. "What's your name again? I can only remember your last name."

"Jay." he smirked.

"Just one letter?" I asked, raising my eyebrow in slight amusement. He has no name, just a letter.

"Well no, I spell it J A Y so... it's just a nickname like I said before." he reminded me of our hasty first conversation. Not that it had been off my mind for the past two and a half hours.

"Hmmm." I nodded with pursed lips. "So is that all?" I asked, looking back up to the black glasses hiding his eyes. _Is he really light sensitive?_

"So ready to get rid of me." he mused. "Well I guess so, see ya, Rosalie." he waved his hand deliberately then walked over to the door.

"Wait!" I stood up, preparing to go after him for some reason I didn't understand.

He didn't turn around or take his hand off the doorknob. "Yeah?"

"Why do you wear those inside? The sunglasses?" I asked, my voice timid.

He dropped his head forward just fraction and opened the door. "For a reason I guess you'll never know. Laters."

He walked out before I could work up a response.

I ran my fingers through my hair and sat back on the bed. "What the fuck?" I repeated for the second time after he'd left in one day.

***

"Good evening, Bryce." I smiled as I walked into my fathers study, attached to the side of his bedroom with two doors leading to the hall and his room.

"How was your day?" he asked, smiling a fraction as he looked up from his work. He was always working, all day at the office then half the night at home.

"Tolerable." I shrugged, taking a seat on one of the overstuffed chairs opposite him. "Yours?"

"Busy. So do you need my signature for something?" he asked, still looking over papers in front of him then up to the computer screen after writing something every few seconds.

"No, just wanted to make sure you're okay." I explained my presence. I pulled my feet up onto the chair and leant over the arm partially till I wasn't leaning on any hard bits.

"Why wouldn't I be?" He frowned, perplexed.

"It's a figure of speech, I was making sure you're here, safe, well, you're my father, I care." I took a deep breath. How I managed to communicate so well with a non-english speaking nanny and an absent father I'll never know. It's amazing I speak english at all.

"Well I appreciate your concern. Yes, I'm fine. You're alright I trust?" he glanced up, taking in my appearance and looked back down once more when he didn't see anything wrong with me.

"Same as usual." I nodded. "Should I have learnt Vietnamese? To be able to speak to Min Lin, I never picked it up oddly enough. She let a stranger in today because he was able to talk to her."

"She did what?" He looked up with a start. "A stranger?"

"Well I go to school with him, I guess." I tried feebly to explain, not wanting the psychotic woman fired after all this time.

"You guess?" he put down him pen and stood.

"I do, I just don't know him very well. He came over to speak to me." I put my feet down in case I had to chase him through the house while he looked for Min Lin.

"And she just let him in?" he frowned.

"I gather he explained the connection to her." I shrugged, trying to calm him with my front of indifference.

I pulled my feet back up in an attempt to look like I was settling back in, it worked some because after a moment he sat again.

"I'll have a very strong word with her later. And no, you shouldn't need to speak with the help. It's my job to handle them." he picked up his pen again, another sign he'd relaxed a bit.

"Please don't fire her, Bryce. I've become somewhat attached to the crazy little thing." I requested with a hint of playfullness.

"I don't intend on firing her." He reassured me. "Just making the rules of the house a little clearer."

"Okay." I nodded. "May I ask for something?"

"Of course." he nodded, now engrossed in his work again.

"Do I have to call you by your first name? It makes me feel like I don't actually have a _parent_." I looked down to avoid seeing the look he probably had.

"I'm your father no matter what, why would you want to call me juvenile parental titles?" he asked.

"I don't know, it's just strange, hearing everyone else call their parents mom and dad even when they're my age and I can't." I fidgeted nervously in the seat, twisting my fingers around each other.

"Don't children now days call their parents by their first names as an act of rebellion? I would think you'd be comfortable with it by now. But, I suppose if it would please you, you can call me dad." he agreed, his voice lighter.

"I rebel in other ways, more discreet. Like the tattoo on my ass that says 'Bitch'." I joked lightly.

"You would show some strange man your ass so he can repeatedly stab you with a needle? Well if you can do that then enjoy your strange way of defying me." He smiled the same half smile as before.

"Well it's no fun if you're not mad." I scoffed.

"That would be why I didn't get angry, I can take the point and fun out of it with my reaction and your left with a profanity on your behind." he looked up at me, his eyes a little creased in the corners in a rare smile, a full one.

"Lucky me." I chuckled softly.

"Yes... Look, Rosalie, I don't mean to push you away but I have to do this before morning and I _would_ like a few hours sleep." he looked up with an apologetic expression.

"No no, it's fine. It was nice talking to you, dad." I watched his reaction carefully but he didn't falter.  
"Goodnight, Rosalie."

"Night." I smiled, stepping up and walking back out into the hall.

I walked back down to my bedroom and climbed into bed, lying flat on my back on the soft mattress, swathed in expensive linen. I still didn't feel comfortable for some reason, something bugged me, something about _Shades_─as I'd come to think of him throughout my obsessing today, that and I couldn't remember his name/letter without deliberately thinking about it─was bugging me. What was making it worse was the fact I couldn't figure out what that was. I fell asleep after about thirty minutes of making my head hurt trying to figure out what made me so enamoured with him.

* * *

Reviews are like Shades in a leather jacket, completely mouthwatering...


	2. Chapter 2 Nonfriends

_**This wasn't a one shot story, nope, there is many more chapters planned if only I can write them out. Here is the second one; hopefully the third won't be too far after.**_

2. Non friends

"_Mmmm, oh," I moaned, arching my back off the table, the sensation coursing through me at this moment was nothing less than exquisite. My stomach twisted and clenched, throwing my hips up towards the warm mouth on my crotch._

"_Oh, shit… yeah," I tossed my head back, pushing my body higher off the hardwood top of my dining room table. Cutlery was scattered on the floor around me along with the practically ancient table-top candelabra lying on the head chair; white, half melted dinner candles having fallen out on the ground when it was pushed off the table in a hurry. The room was dimly lit, the source of the ambient glow unclear._

_I clutched at the edge of the table with all my quickly diminishing strength, holding myself there despite my body wanting to writhe around of its own volition. The unidentified person between my thighs was keeping me so consumed with ecstasy that I couldn't even sit up long enough to see who it was. Although, I still had a fairly good idea._

_A fingertip just barely slid between the lips, stroking my entrance teasingly while the soft heat of a tongue continued to massage my clit. The digit swirled around, almost entering, not enough to give me the pleasure I was looking for. _

"_Please," I gasped. The person obliged to a degree, the fingertip slipped in and swirled around then pulled back out again. "Ungh, please." I flailed around pushing my fingers into my hair, fisting it tightly. I sucked in another hard breath and bucked up my hips only to collide with a very muscled arm across my lower stomach that was pinning me down to the table. I groaned loudly, both enjoying and cursing the subtle restraint._

_The suction increased exponentially and didn't stop this time when I clamped down as it had before. A moment after, the fingertip pushed back in then the rest followed in a smooth motion. I gasped in a deep breath and sat up._

"Holy fuck!" I panted as I woke up. My entire body was already awake and electro-charged. I panted in a few breaths and shoved the blankets off me, my body was overheating and sweating like I'd run a marathon.

I fell back onto the pillows and looked up at the white canopy over my bed. I'd had this particular one since I was four; originally it had a small box steps set on the side because I couldn't get up it alone.

I'd never had a dream like _that_ when I was four. But then again, I didn't know Shades when I was four either. It had to be him in my dream, the only person to have warranted those types of reactions from me in my life.

_This is definitely not helping my cause._

I looked over to the clock, it was seven twenty-six am, and I was already six minutes late for my kick boxing class and twenty six minutes late to have left the house. That was being skipped today I guess.

Every Tuesday and Friday I had an early morning kick boxing class, mainly because when I was really angry I could kick my partner in the chest and pass it off as missing.

I clambered out of bed on my jelly legs, deciding to use the extra time to have a bath rather than the standard morning shower. I turned on the taps over the bath and put in some bath salts, opting against bubbles today, then went to the sink to brush my teeth while it filled up.

Paste covered toothbrush in hand, I started brushing and stared at my own reflection, I looked different somehow. Not just sweaty and flushed. My hair looked slightly darker or maybe I was getting paler—not likely in the San Francisco sun. Maybe I was gaining or losing weight. I clamped my lips around the toothbrush to stop the foam coming out and walked over to the scales, doing the thing most women hate. One hundred and fifteen pounds, all right, so I'd lost five pounds since last month. That must be the problem.

I finished brushing my teeth then undressed and slipped into the bath, the warm water making me dangerously sleepy. Drowning was not on my agenda for today though so I forced consciousness through the soothing warmth.

Just as my mind began to clear and swim into nothingness my overly evasive cat, Limbo, jumped in through the window having scaled the lattice on the rear wall of the house. The lattice was covered in green vines that flowered red flowers in the spring but Limbo just used it to get in and out of the house without detection. Most of the time the only hint he was still alive was the fact the food in the bowl beside the shower kept disappearing.

"Hey, shit head." I greeted him. I'd affectionately called him that since he bit me as a kitten.

"Meow." he replied in his husky male cat tone, not bothered by the water. Not only was he unaffectionate and known to go missing for weeks on end, he was also a little freak who liked water.

"Where have you been?" I asked, half expecting him to tell me one day. He strolled over to the bowl and started eating quietly, I was forgotten.

"Some giver of affection you are," I pouted. That was his original purpose, someone for me to snuggle with when the only other living being here was my nanny, who we just couldn't bring ourselves to part with. She was really more of a housekeeper now.

Sadly though, Limbo didn't snuggle.

"You're such an asshole." I smiled to myself, I'm sure he knows what that one means.

"Rosa-wee! Where woo?" A high pitched voice called from my bedroom.

"I'm in the bath, don't come in," I yelled back. She started laughing like an idiot for some reason. "Yeah, ha ha ha ha ha." I laughed forcibly.

"Rosa-wee…" And she just babbled on in Vietnamese once more._ I hope to God she's not telling me she let Shades in again._

I hauled my cookies out of the bath and securely wrapped a towel around myself before opening the door like it had a trip wire attached to it. I scanned my room carefully then something jumped out at me.

"Rosa-wee!" Min Lin seemed overjoyed to see me for some reason. Maybe she finally realized where her clitoris was and she was trying to share the news. "Where woo off?"

I frowned; _she must mean where am I off to_. "I have to go to school, it's Tuesday, school until Friday, same as always." I stepped around her and walked into my closet beside the bathroom. She continued filling me in then ended it with a swoon and a distant look staring off into space. _Hmmm, maybe she met someone at the market._ I guessed from the look.

Girl talk gone bi-lingual.

"Sounds good." I nodded. Picking out a pair of shorts and two different colored tank tops. She nodded enthusiastically even as I pushed her out the door gently and shut it so I could get dressed.

I finished in the closet and walked back into my bedroom which was now empty, I guess she'd said all she had to. Limbo had disappeared when I went and got my brush, leaving nothing up an empty bowl and dirty kitty foot prints in the bathtub.

It escaped my attention that I only had minutes to be on the way to school until the minutes became one minute. It was a well mapped out drive, always taking twenty-two minutes from my house to the school parking lot.

I ran out the front door, pulled an action movie stunt and slid over the hood of the car─making it off the other side alive, thank God─dove into the driver's seat, simultaneously pushing the key into the ignition as I flew.

"Start you bitch!" I demanded. The car roared to life, probably wondering in its mechanical mind why I had the gas pedal pushed down to the max in park.

I made it into the car park a minute before the bell went, breathless from all the screaming in terror over my own driving.

"Slutalie, did some research last night, turns out, I'm above average in the size department." The same idiotic kid came up to me in the hall as I hastily walked towards my first class.

"Reeeally. Well I'm glad you spent all night looking at other guys junk. Oh, and by the way, the size standard is the average over all ethnicities, trust me, you're not that great." I shook my head regrettably and pat him on the shoulder.

"Fuck you." he yelled after me.

"Nah, you're not… _equipped_ enough for me." I stepped into my classroom and shut the door, against the rules but oh well.

"God damn, aren't you hot, Blondie." An obnoxious yet approving voice said behind me.

_And he called me Blondie, he wants to die._

I turned around and bent over the desk, giving the guy a prime look down my shirt as I spoke.

"Take a good, looong look because the next time you say something like that to me I'm going to take that chair you're sitting on and stick the leg _right_ up your ass." I whispered menacingly.

It's true; I've always had people skills issues.

"Mmmm hmmm." he nodded arrogantly.

I pat his shoulder twice then slapped him hard in the side of the head. "Try me."

"You're a feisty one. I like that." he nodded.

I just rolled my eyes and walked over to my seat. _This is why I get here early_. I don't have to walk past every fuckwitt in the class when I come in.

Ms Diandé walked in to start the Spanish class, yet another language I would never pick up. It was hard enough for me to articulate my thoughts in English let alone a second or third language.

Nonetheless, I sat at my desk—drumming my fingers on the table for the majority of the lesson. I stopped occasionally to look around and see how many others were doing the same as me.

No one.

They all seemed strangely interested in what the teacher was talking about. I looked up to the white board and saw three words that I knew, _blanco, el gato _and _negro. _White, male cat, black?

_What on earth?_

Then I saw the glasses and it all made sense. It wasn't the teacher or the lesson it was the correction Shades was making to the sentence on the board. I'd completely missed him before.

"The pronunciation isn't always phonetic to the way the word is spelt, is it Mr. Whitlock?" Ms Diandé asked, a pleasant smile on her face.

"No, ma'am. Thank you for the correction and the explanation." he smiled gratefully.

_Did someone order a kiss ass to classroom fourteen?_ I rolled my eyes, shaking my head disbelievingly.

"Please take your seat." She gestured to a spot one row forward and to the left of the guy who's hit on me. _No wonder I couldn't see him, there was a whale in the way_.

I was almost expecting a round of applause to begin as he walked back to his desk. A war hero walking off the plane, that's what they were looking at him like.

_He didn't just take a bullet for his fellow comrade, he asked for help. Am I the only one here who realizes that God has not just come down to Earth? Of course I am, I'm the only one not staring._

Then the strangest thing happened.

While thinking this I realized that I'd been staring the whole time. _Oh shit._

It was like dangling a candy bar in front of a bunch of fat people. Their heads all turned to follow it. But I'm not two hundred pounds and I don't even like chocolate, why would I watch? _Well that's easily fixed. I won't_.

And that became my mission.

For once in my life I didn't do what everyone else did. I didn't go with the trend.

While every other girl in school was imagining themselves instantly in love with Shades, I managed to hold onto my sanity.

Just as I was getting the hang of it, around three days later, I was rudely interrupted by…

"Hey."

I looked up to find the hair and sunglasses sitting across from me, no leather today.

I was a little disappointed but I didn't show it.

"What now?" I asked, tossing my cheese fry back in with the rest.

"Jay!" Some guy yelled from the other side of the room.

Shades turned around and nodded quickly.

"You're being summoned by your _posse_." I muttered dryly.

"Fuck 'em." he shrugged, turning back to me.

"You really love your friends, don't you?" I laughed.

"They're not my friends. Most of my _friends_ are in Boston." he replied, shrugging off my comment.

"So you don't plan on making friends here?"

"I don't make friends with people like them."

"People like who? Californians?"

I glanced over to the group waiting for him. They were all looking at us with confusion written all over their faces. Their God was sitting at a table, talking with the resident freak.

"People who follow me like sheep. I prefer friends who are capable of telling me when I'm pissing them off." he told me. He reached over and picked up one of my cheese fries, without asking, and ate it.

"Right now you're pissing me off. And that's mine," I snatched the container away when he tried to take another one.

"Thank fuck, you told me off. Marry me?" he sighed in relief and actually hunched over a little like being idolized was stressful.

"And I'll do it again. I don't even know your first name, I'm sure one of them would love to marry you though." I deliberately looked over his shoulder to his friends.

"That wasn't a no." he smirked.

"It wasn't a yes either." I pointed out.

"It was a non-no," he surmised. "I'll work on it."

_He'll work on getting me to agree to marry him?_ _Because I _don't_ like him. _"Yeah, sure."

"So I've been thinking—"

"Don't strain yourself." I chided.

"Oh ha ha, you're a real original." he said sarcastically.

_Original, I am not._ "Go on," I sighed, rolling my eyes as I prompted him to continue with a wave of my hand. "What have you been thinking?"

"I've been thinking that since you don't like me and I like _that_, maybe we could be non-friends. That wouldn't include doing things that friends do, just everything else. Non-friends, non-friend activities…"

"Non-friends? Are you insane?" I whisper-yelled. _Oh fuck, now _I'm_ hyphenating things._

"I'm non-normal," he replied cheekily, smiling in a more relaxed way than the smirks I'd seen before.

I found myself mysteriously entranced with his shining white, perfectly straight teeth.

"Hey! Snap out of it!" A hand was clicking in front of my face.

"What?" I spluttered. My eyes went wide and darted around quickly then came back to rest on the sunglasses.

"Don't you get all girly on me."

"I am a girl."

"Don't girl-y. So come on, I'm not asking you to walk across hot coals, just be my social solace. I kinda like that none of them will come near you. You do know what they say about you right?" One of his light eyebrows raised behind the glasses, peeking over the top.

"Half the people in this school think my name is Slutalie, I get the picture." I nodded affirmatively.

"You don't mind that they think your tits are fake?"

_They think my tits are fake? _I frowned and looked down at my chest. "They think my tits are fake?"

"They assume. They think your ass is massive too, which is both a good and bad thing, it depends who you talk to." he informed me casually, reaching for my cheesy fries again.

I absentmindedly snatched them further away. "Do _you _think my ass is massive?" I looked down at my seat; my ass wasn't spilling over the edges…

"I think you have a very nice ass." he shrugged.

"So you've looked at my ass?" I smirked at this realization.

"Naturally. I've looked at everyone's ass, even some of the fitter guys." he admitted shamelessly.

So he's a pervert. Not surprising. I wasn't prepared for the bi-sexual thing, I don't get that vibe.

I wonder if he's ever been with a guy. Why do I find that hot? That's not hot and I should know.

"That's… nice." I nodded slowly.

"Me wanting to run over half the student body is nice?" he asked, tone indicating that he was questioning my sanity.

"I wasn't listening." I said quickly. _I was imagining you with another guy._

"How polite of you. I'm certainly glad we're not friends." Although I couldn't see his eyes I knew that they were most certainly open wider than usual. I found myself wondering again, what color his eyes _really_ were. Rather than colors in my constantly changing guesses. "Anyway—are you listening now?"

"Yes."

"Okay. So you don't want to be friends, non-friends or even friendly acquaintances. Where does that leave us—?"

"There is no _us_." I reminded him instantly.

"There's a you and a me in this world so there is an us. Are we enemies?"

I pondered this for a moment; if we were enemies then it would most likely result in eggings and possibly a drive-by shooting from his cult followers. But if we weren't, he'd most likely keep trying to _figure me out_.

I sighed in defeat and shook my head. "No. We're… _non-friends. _Stop smiling."

"I'm not smiling." He denied, smiling wider.

"Fine, stop barring your teeth at me."

His lips shut but they were still curved up into a smirk. "Okay, well I'll call you later to set up some kind of non-friend activity for tomorrow; unless you do things on Saturday's? Quick! Before you can make something up!"

Instantly flustered from his demanding, in-my-face question I shook my head. "No."

"Good. We'll talk later." He stood up, still smiling.

I nodded agreeably. He didn't have my phone number and hadn't asked for it. "Okay."

A very awkward moment began—well for me anyway, Shades was still smiling—then he lunged forward and grabbed half a dozen cheese fries before scampering off to his friends.

"Uh…" I looked down at the mangled remains of my lunch, finger marks and torn off chunks around a small ditch where the food he'd stolen had been.

"Rosa-wee!" Min Lin squealed the second I opened the front door. She raced down the stairs, digging in the pocket of her black pants.

"Hey." I smiled nervously; excited Vietnamese nannies were never good in my experience.

She came to a screeching halt just inches in front of me then whipped out a piece of paper, forcing me to take it. I turned it over then twisted it around when I realized it was upside down. "Oh, awww," I smiled when I finally got to see the picture of her and some guy. It looked like a tourist photo—chances are it probably was taken by a passerby—but it showed my psychotic, well-meaning nanny in a lip lock with a man in front of what did look like the local Asian market.

"How sweet." I complimented, passing the photo back to her. She nodded, clutching the photo in her hands as she traced over her boyfriends face.

She babbled away for a bit, her tone indicating that she was telling me a few facts, then she pulled me into a short hug before leaving just as abruptly as it had all started.

I escaped to my bedroom and locked the door to deter further _enlightenment_ into Min Lin's romantic life. Not that I really had a clue what she was jabbering away about. I could only hope she wasn't telling me that he was moving in. That would not go down well.

My school bag was dumped by the first few feet inside the door then my shoes shortly after that, the next action was the hardest of all. I perfectly executed a one-eighty degree spin and fell back onto the bed.

Bzzzzz, bzzzzz, bzzzzz, bzzzzz. My ass was vibrating.

I half rolled into my side and dug my phone out of my back pocket. "Private number, huh?" I asked my phone.

It didn't reply.

After letting it buzz another two times I answered it without speaking, expecting an automated voice to just start on its own.

"_Well I guess we're not friends so I greeting would be out of the question_."

I dropped the phone on my face.

"Hello?"

"_Hey._"

"You're talking to me. On the phone. On _my_ phone."

"_Well spotted._" The voice said condescendingly.

I sat up, running my left hand fingers through my hair quickly. "Wait, how did you get this number?"

"_I told you I have no problem rifling through school records. So... Rosalie Lillian Hale, A minus student who is currently failing Home Ec, how was the drive home?_"

I laughed nervously. "Yeah… fuck off, stalker."

"_I hardly think it's fair to call me a stalker when you willingly gave this information to a government institution. And since the government is there for the people, I can look at your public file if the inclination so strikes me. But really I just wanted to make sure none of the rumors were true. No herpes?"_

"No." I answered instantly, frowning.

"_No liaison with Coach Anderson?_"

"That one's true."

"_Really_?"

"No." I laughed lightly and slowly lowered myself back onto the bed.

"_No knifing in the cafeteria?_"

"There nearly was today, but no."

"_Well they were very good cheese fries. Maybe even worth being stabbed over_. _What about the biting warning pinned to your name?"_

I groaned and nodded, then remembering that he can't see me. "That one really is real."

"_Kinky. Tell me more._"

"Urg, I don't suppose you'd know the feeling but sometimes you have expectations put on you and you feel obliged to fulfill them. Good or bad."

He hummed thoughtfully. "_Yeah, I know something kind of like that. So you were _expected_ to bite, one, two, three, four, five... eight people?_"

"Eight? Really? Seemed like more. Um, in a way." Why I was telling him this I'll never know, why I didn't just hang up when the stalker rang in the first place is an even bigger mystery. "Has someone ever told you, you were something that wasn't true? Good or bad?"

"_Yeah, if you believe my sixth grade teacher I'm a waste of perfectly good resources._"

"Why did he say that?"

"_I took a piss in her purse."_ He laughed shamelessly.

I laughed before I could stop myself, that and the fact Shades was laughing on the other end. "That's not the same thing."

"_Oh, well then no._"

"Why, out of sheer curiosity, did you piss in her purse?"

"_She refused me a bathroom break._" he explained.

"Oh, well, that's the normal course of action in such a circumstance. You couldn't have done something bad like walked out anyway."

"_Well I guess I did the wrong thing, maybe you should_… _smack me in the face with a lunch tray, for punishment._"

"How do you know all of this?" I demanded between fits of choking and coughing.

"_You do anything bad at school and someone is going to write a report on it. So continue, why the biting?_" He fell silent then, waiting patiently while I regained my composure.

"Well it's like I said, expectations. I had people expecting me to be bad and I was young enough to do whatever people expected. Apparently I was a horrible child."

"Were_ you a horrible child?_"

I shrugged, staring up at the moulding around the ceiling corners. "For how I was, yeah, I guess so."

"_Well I'm telling you now, you bite me I'll bite you back. That having been said, feel free to have a chew if you really want to._"

Another peel of laughter broke my lips. "Yeah, I'll be sure to keep that in mind."

"_So are you an early riser or do you sleep in?_"

"Why?"

"_Our non-friend activity. If you're up early we can go bungee jumping, if not we can clean out cages that the local animal shelter. Both aren't things you'd do with your friends so take your pick. Sleep and shit, or tired and screaming."_

"How about neither." I suggested.

"_Neither would mean I turn up at any time with any activity in mind. With the limit of being something you wouldn't do with a friend of course._"

A morning of sleep then cleaning duties, tired and scared out of my mind, or God knows what... "I'll take the shit, see you at one o'clock."

"_You would rather sleep than spend five minutes dangling upside down by your ankles then have the rest of the day free as opposed to cleaning shit?_"

I pretended to think about it for a long moment then hummed agreeably. "Mmmm hmmm, yep, 'fraid so."

"_You're a very strange girl,_" He paused to laugh for a minute. "_Well then I guess I'll see you at one. Enjoy the extra sleep."_

"I intend to," I replied a little smugly. "I'm sure the kitties and little puppies will thank me for my kindness."

"_Oh I'm sure they will. Wagging tails and midget cats purring is all the reward I need._" Never had so much sarcasm been put in one breath. My smile widened as it became apparent just how much of a threat this option was, but if it's good enough to suggest then he can suck it up. Kittens haven't got anything on some of the crap Limbo's dropped in the litter tray at various times in his life.

"Exactly. Well I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye..."

I hung up and managed to hold onto my smile for about three seconds until I remembered that animal shelters have sick animals. Sick animals that have diarrhoea. Highly contagious diarrhoea which means they all have had it at some point.

Suddenly Limbo was looking much more innocent.

_What did I just get myself into?_

Snaps for an original idea. Cleaning out litter trays. Classy.


End file.
